ABSTRACT
One of the cornerstones of analysis is the study of real valued functions of a real variable. To the extent that functions appear in elementary mathematics, they tend to appear either as narrow classes related to arithmetic, such as polynomials, rational functions, or roots, or as specific examples of “transcendental” functions. Thus a function of a real variable x might be defined by operating on x by the elementary arithmetic operations addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, yielding such examples as p ( x ) = x 2 + 3 x + 7 , r ( x ) = x − 1 x 3 + 7 x 2 , https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315152721/7eeee3ed-efa4-434d-8da2-13dce29a52aa/content/eq732.tif"/>
